 Either down at the main or in one of your branches. So come in, check out the library and get some great summer reading. You're watching At the Public Library on Cable Channel 54, CityWatch. You can also see At the Public Library on Tuesdays at 3 p.m., Fridays at 8 p.m. and Saturdays at 2 p.m. The San Francisco Public Library is pleased to present Factory Maneuvers, an examination of the mechanization of bookbinding in the 19th century with your hosts, Bay Area bookbinders John de Merritt and Dominic Riley. Hello, it's book talk with John Dominic. John, say hello to the people at home, please. Hello. Now, we've been persuaded to take a break from our browsing at the special collections at the San Francisco Public Library. Deep reading. To share with you some of the observations we've made. Now, John, what have we been looking at particularly today? Two books, one book, Dominic's book from the 18th century. This is called, oh, it's Horatius. Yeah, and I have the Table Book of Art. About 100 years later than your book, 1870s, a typical 19th century book. Well, let's talk about a few of the surface differences in these books. Sure. Well, my book, for instance, and this is obvious you could tell this, my book's bound in leather. It's covered with leather. Right. And leather, of course, is expensive. It's difficult to prepare. Mm-hmm. And it costs a lot of money. Now, your book. Yeah, my book, on the other hand, is bound in cloth, a linen, probably coated with some sort of starch. Right. So what we're saying is that major change happened in the 19th century in relation to bookbinding, and that was, John? Cloth. Mm-hmm. Something more? Uh, Xeroxing. Mm-hmm. A little out of time. Binding books at the forest. No, no, I have to stop you there. It was, in fact, mechanization. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that. That's right. And we're going to look today at some of those machines that intervened in the bookbindery. And we're going to visit two very different bookbinderies that are related in some ways. We certainly are. Right. Actually, I think some of our old predecessors were working at those. Yeah, John and I both come from a very long line of ancestors. That's right. Some of whom happened to be bookbinders. Bookbinders. Yeah. In fact, I had an uncle who was a bookmaker, but that's something slightly different. And he went to jail for it. And my grandfather was a leather worker. Oh, he was? Yeah, a football coach. Oh, right. Okay. Now, this is a skeleton of a binding. A book, not a little bit unlike this. And what you can see about it is that it has its boards, which are these, attached to the book before it's bound. And they're held in place by means of these cords that the book is sewn on, and they're held in through these holes. A big difference that we want to look at today with John's book here. My book, on the other hand, comes in two parts. A text block, which has been sewn and worked together. And a case or a cover, which is made separately from the book block and then sort of wed together at the last minute in a big standing press. And we're going to look at some of the visceral differences between these two structures, where the similarity is we're both starting with a printed sheet of paper, which we get from the printer, printed four up, folded into what's called a signature. Which pops inside here. Which is nested inside these and is gathered into a book, which is the same thing that we will both start out with. But they're all similarities, and the work is very different. So what we're really saying is, although these books look different on the outside, the major differences come in the 19th century with the way they're built. Things that aren't so obvious when you first look at the book. The way they're built. So we have a couple of pictures, and I think up there we can see that's a nice engraving of a picture of a bindery in the 18th century. Right. And what are a couple of things that we notice about this? There are four people in this room. This guy here is beating the sections. The paper needs to be flattened before it's bound. Right. Here, sitting at the sewing frame is a woman doing the sewing. The division of labor was always done down gender lines, and women always did the sewing, and the sewing of headbands. And they sat down generally to do that. Then over here we have this man who's here at a thing called a press and plow, and he's shaving the top edge of the books off to make them flat. And here's a guy operating the big standing press, a wooden press. And that's essentially most of the activities in book binding are described in this picture. That's right. Now, this other picture, on the other hand, John, you'll tell us about it. Yeah, this picture represents a very large factory-style 19th century bindery. And this is just one small section of this binding. And maybe with the perspective, maybe starting in the back, you can see a group of people there who are perhaps folding, maybe gathering. You can see something with sort of a treadle or a windmill there. That might be a folding machine. And these are all operated by steam via these? Correct. You can see this cog or this sort of treadle up on top, which is probably operated by a large steam-powered engine, maybe in the basement of the building. A little bit towards us, you can see the giant stacks of signatures everywhere. Probably women sewing at the sewing frames, a little closer to that. You can see someone with a beading hammer or a rounding and backing hammer, probably rounding and backing. A little closer to that, you think, I think you see some very rudimentary sort of guillotines. They look great. Yeah, you can see the sort of shavings on the floor. And the interesting thing about this illustration is that it just represents a very small part of the bindery. John, could I just interrupt you please? What? Nothing, I just wanted to interrupt you. Oh, thank you. Yeah, well, I think now what we should do is talk, we've told you a little bit about our ancestors. Yes, our ancestors, we did say that we had ancestors through book binders and we weren't joking, it was true. And I think first of all, we're going to look at my ancestor, who was called Archibald Riley, and he was a book binder in the 1780s in London. And here he is. In his bindery in 1786, which... Oh, that's right. Now, this is the year of the great book binders uprising when four of them went to Newgate Jail for a reduction of their working hours by one hour. Did you know that? Yeah. My ancestor Archibald spent... What do you mean? He looks like he just got up. No, he's just got out of Newgate prison. That's why it looks pissed off. Now, here we are in the picture, in the foreground, the plow that we saw. Yeah, and what do you see that that he's sitting in front of? That's the sewing frame. Huh. In the background, a small standing press. Yeah. There's nothing else in it. That's all there is really to the bindery. A bit of leather. Some hand tools. Yeah, I mean, you know... What's that he just picked up? That's a little knocking-down mallet. And here's a little book I think that we're going to see him sew in a bit. Insignatures. Absolutely. Now, by contrast, we're going to look at your ancestor. What was his name, John? His name was Charleston Tamerit. Yeah. A 19th century hack merchant. Oh, yeah. With not a care in the world really. Really? Yeah. And here he is knocking up books. In the bindery, you can see the difference. Oh, absolutely. Well, there's about 6,000 pounds worth of difference between the two binderies. You see, two large pieces of machinery behind him. Mm-hmm. The board cutter, where old Charleston now. He looks kind of like you, doesn't he? He is a distant relative. Yeah. Now, next to him is a guillotine used for cutting paper. Where's that? Oh, on the left. The gray monstrosity. God, that's a brute, isn't it? It is a brute, and it can really cut people. He was a messy old bugger, wasn't he? Look at him. Look at that place. It's a disgrace. You should see the floor. Yeah. I think he cleaned this up before we went over there. Really? Yeah. They didn't care back then, did they? So wage labor we're talking about, really. I mean, this guy is, he works in a factory. He doesn't really have the same autonomy that old Archibald had back then. He works from seven in the morning till nine, ten at night. He does not. Really? Every six days a week. Now, we're going to look at the operations involved now in this, in these bindings. In the 18th century bindings. Yeah. 1786, but back in the bindery. Archibald. Sewing. Now, we saw the sheets earlier, and here he is. Now, this job, is basically done by a woman, I understand. Yes. What's that he's tying on there? This is called a sewing key. That little piece of brass in his hand. Yeah. Now, we sew around this cord, right? You've got to lock it into place so he's going to... You're doing a special knot there. It's called a key knot. You put it in this groove. Yeah. Then it gets wrapped around this bar at the top. Yes. Round it goes, tie it off, and then you need to make it nice and taut. So you can do this by means of these screws. With those wooden screws. These sewing frames are very old. Primarily. Yeah. Not fiberglass or anything like that. No nylon thread or anything. No. Now, he's got five of those cords. Yeah. And he's sewing around them. You can see that he's sort of going around them. Yeah. You don't go in a line. You just do a loop, a figure of eight things. And you just sew them one after the other, linking up each time to the next one. Yeah. That's called a kettle stitch, correct? Yes. This is Irish unbleached linen thread. Yeah. When it's sewn, you take the keys out, of course, I think he's going to do a pair of shears there. He's going to cut them off with some shears. And once that's done, you take the keys off. They just unwrap. Yeah. You see, you don't have to cut those. And there it is. All sewn up. It's starting to look like a book. Yeah. Now, Charleston, on the other hand, has a different way of doing it. My goodness. Look at that. Charleston has some ice sewing machine, another monstrosity. When was that invented? Oh, in the 1850s, I believe, given a little kickstart. This one happens to be in the 1850s. Oh, you probably would have used it. He probably would have used it. Now he's used it. He places the signature of the book on a platen, hits a treadle with his foot, and the book is sewn. Left in place is sewn in gigantic blocks. Oh, we do it. More than one book, which will then be cut apart later. Right. He's finding the middle of the signature, putting it on the platen. It's pierced and sewn at the same time. This looks like hard work, though. Very hard work. Cost-cutting work. Cost-cutting work incredibly fast compared to what we're doing. Right. That's a good, nice picture of your home. You can see the cams. There is a similarity, isn't it? Cutting off the threads, removing. You wouldn't just sew one book at a time. You can sew up to 30 or 40 books at a time, depending on how many figures you need. And there's no cords here. No cords, no tapes, no anything. Now, trimming. Now, we're looking in the 1780s at trimming. It's been unchanged for many, many centuries. What's this piece of equipment called? A laying press. It sits in a tub. Yeah. You screw the book in. This is the fore edge. We're going to trim first. And it has a little piece of binder's board at the back of it to protect it. Yeah. And what we're going to do is we're going to actually take this thing called a plow, which is sitting on the desk. Which is essentially a sharpened blade which is held together between these two pieces of wood with a screw. Yeah. And we're going to run it up and down in this gutter. It's like another press. It's another kind of press, yeah. And as you'll see, it shaves that little bit of the pages. And you don't just cut the whole book block at once. Oh, no. Every time you do it, you turn in with the screw a little bit and it moves the blade. You can see that you're turning the blade a little bit different. Yeah. In and in and in and then it's nicely trimmed. Then you go all the way around the book. It's very fast. Would you do one or two books at a time? Sometimes you could put three in. You're putting on the thickness. So the plow fits on a track on the laying press. Yeah, absolutely. Then you have to do two sides, you know, you take it out and you turn it around. But that's essentially all there is to it. And it makes a beautiful cut. Oh, very smooth. Very smooth. Yeah. The other hand. Oh, this is good. Charleston's guillotine here, which is the machine you saw in the background before. It's a very large machine with a blade, mechanically operated blade. When was this machine an adventure jump? 1830s or 40s, I believe. You can see he's just cut the four edges of two books. Yeah. That was sewn earlier. But there's a gauge. Oh, OK. A clamp comes down to hold it and the blade is engaged with the clutch. Fabulous. Mind you, you don't want to get your fingers caught in it, do you? Absolutely not. Rounding and backing. Bad accidents can happen. Now, here we are. Before we round and back this book, you see those cords are very thick. They're very thick cords. So we fray them out. It's called fraying out the slims. And when they're nice and smooth, we just take a bookbinder's hammer, very gently, both sides. Now, what's the purpose of doing this? Well, the book has a huge swell at the spine. So that swell has to go somewhere. Because of the fold and the thread. Yeah, the fold and the thread makes the book thicker at the spine. So we put it into a round like that so it will function better as a machine because it is a machine. Now, you see again you're going back into the length which is really the all-purpose piece of equipment in the binder. We're putting it between these two angled or beveled sort of shoulder on the book. It's that little edge where the board is going to sit. Well, the board will sit flush too. Now, here on the other hand is a starbacker or a rounderbacker that will replace hammering a book. It's been slightly hammered so it's a little bit round already. Charleston here is clamping the book. He'll put all his weight onto it. Oh, I see the round there, yes. You see the round there he's going to roll this giant iron round all over the, over the book. And you can see that it does a pretty nice job. That's a very heavy roller that's going on there. It's very heavy. This is the sort of ultimate Victorian piece of machinery. I love that. I won't work. And he did a pretty good job there. Yeah. He's a hard worker. He works very hard. Now, lacing on, of course, this is the board that's going to make the cover of the book and we're punching holes in it which you'll see why we're going to do that in a minute. We're going to punch two sets of holes and then we cut a small channel which is also called a slip. You're sort of excavating the board. Excavating a little bit and that's where the cord is going to sit. So it makes it nice and flat. And into those holes we're going to actually rub some glue or paste in this case. Yeah. Onto the slips those pieces of cord that the book was sewn on. And they will then be laced into the board and you'll see how this works. Nicely. We get the paste. So the board's attached to the book before. It's attached at this stage. Before covering. Which is very different to your book, right? Yes. That you showed us earlier. So we've rubbed some glue into there and now we take those slips. Does your head get hot during this? Because of the little cap and wear? Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah. We pull the little cords through. Although that isn't actually me. I know it looks like me. Yeah. That was my great-great ancestor. Yeah. And we're going to bash down those holes and that will secure the book in place. Now. Headbanding. To its boards. Now this is all done with a needle and thread and a simple piece of cord. Yes. It's important to put chalk on your hands. Yeah. Very important. Just like a gymnast. Yes. Or a snooker player. Or a friend's chef. And then we're going to sew around the headband two colors, red and white. Generally they would use two colors. So you're so, actually this is being mechanically attached to the book. Yes. You actually, There's no glue involved. You're going down there. Yeah. You're going right the way through below the kettle stitch. Right. Below the kettle stitch. Yeah. You don't have to. But that's, it's always good. It's a psychological reassurance or anything else. Using two color threads. Two color threads. It's a rounded, around headband. And then when it's finished you just tie off at the end. Bit of glue. But this is hot glue made from leftover bits of animals that our carnivorous friends don't eat. And then you have the old purpose paring knife. Cut the, Remove the ends. Yeah. In the olden days they used to be laced into the board. But this is more decorative and structural and you cut it off. And there it is. Beautiful decorative stripy headband. Right. And we'll see in the 19th century the new, a new kind of headband because we were really moving into multiples. They did away with the sewing. They did away with the sewing because it was extremely time consuming. But you still have a stripy piece of material there. Mechanical device. Now, the striped material came from the binder's Oxford shirt. Get out of here. It's true. Which the binder probably paid for themselves? What, in terms of you mean they paid for with the accidents they had and they paid for with their lives? The bindery wasn't supported. Oh, they actually bought them, right? I see. Now, you can see I just wrapped a stiffen cord. Oh, and there you see he's made several headbands out of his shirt. Those were for different books. Right. Now, Charleston had a lot of shirts. Now, lining the spine. Okay. After we've attached the headband to the book, we take a piece of crush. Oh. Mall. It's very much like a piece of cheese claw. Notice that Archibald didn't line his spine, by the way. No, Archibald did not because he didn't need to because it was already strong. It's already strong. You put this on. What Charleston is doing here is since there is no attachment of boards he is lining the spine of the book to make the book block, the text block a single unit. Plus, he's creating, by putting this crush on here, he's creating a strong attachment when the cover is actually attached to the book block. In England, we used to call that mall. Yeah, they call it mall. It depends what coast you're from. Right. It's also called super. Oh. I think if you call it super, if you're from Chicago. Okay. Now, he's glued it again. He's glued it again and he's going to paste it so that the spine retains its shape as it opens and grows. That's pink craft paper. Pink craft paper, very 19th century. Presumably not made to match the headband, which is also pink. That's just an accident, isn't it? Yeah. Because we're not going to see that. Now, covering actually for old Archibald back in the 1780s was a lengthy process covered in in hide, leather. This is actually a kip side, which is an adolescent calf skin. Yeah. What are you doing there? He's tired, doesn't he? Oh, nice. Remembering those long days when he was languishing in jail, I think. Yeah. All my family have been great revolutionaries. I have a great radical tradition that I come from. He's cutting it out with this big knife. His paring knife. My mother actually organized a revolution in the Women's Institute a few years ago. Mm-hmm. Now, he's going to pair the edge here with his with his paring knife. English paring knife, I have to say. Yeah. Oh, that looks very hard. Well, it's hard. Now, he's what's he doing there? Well, he's dyeing this now and it's a vegetable dye, brown number two. Mm-hmm. There were only four colors of dye in those days. Can you just brush it on with a piece of cloth? Yeah. It's a rag, really. Yeah. Put it on with a rag or a rake, as they say in Montana. Yeah. And then lift it up to the light. That's what Peter Katz would say. He would. Yeah. He's got such a hic accent, doesn't he? Now what? No, we're just pasting it out now. Get it nice and wet. You know, when it's tacky, we put the book on it, wrap it around. Now you see, it's not covering the whole book. Yeah. This is called a half-binding. Now by this time, the leather is quite supple and easy to work. Oh, it's wonderful. We're forming it round the spine. We want to take all the shape and the impressions of those raised bands that we sewed it on. The rest of this board will be covered in marble paper or plain paper, by the way. Yeah. Now you're turning it in down the spine. And when it's closed, we wrap it up. And this cord that goes around the neck and emphasizes it. Didn't his sleeves get in the way when he was working? Oh, sometimes. Now, Charleston, on the other hand, is making what's called a cloth case. He's setting his board cutter up to cut boards, which have not been attached to the book block yet. So now is the time that he would do that. Oh, okay. Cutting the panels out. Now this is really quick. The boards, by the way, Archibald would not have used one of these. He would have cut his boards in the plow. Yes. The same place where he trimmed his book. This is all about multiples. Now, tell me about book cloth. It's a starch-filled linen that was generally coated on the facing side for making it easy to stamp and to make it pleasing to the eye. But this wasn't around an Archibald's day. This was. Oh, no, no. This came around well into wide use in the 1830s and 40s. And it really became the prime. A lot stronger than this. So it was an alternative. It was better than paper, but it was an alternative to leather. Yes. It was easy to treat. And they had to invent new methods to use it. There were ways it was a lot harder. So they got it and they made some improvements to it that made it easier to work for. OK. Four books. Right. Particularly so that it could accept stamping and adhesive. Stamping is the goal tooling onto it, right? That's right. The embossing. Now, he's making what? What Charleston is doing is making the case. He's using a gauge there so that the spine size is always uniform, which is very important. Oh, OK. Putting the two panels down. So this is very, very fast. This is like production line stuff, isn't it? To reinforce that. And you can see that all his movements are very economical. Just goes like that. You can tell he's done it millions and millions of times. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He's fast. He's very fast. Now he's going to use it. Simple turning-in tool. Mm-hmm. Hand tools were still quite common in the, you know, addition bindery. But they were just aided. There were certain steps that were aided by mechanical machines. But you're still using, I mean, you're still using his hands, right? You're still using his hands. Factory machine production. Well, no, that's the common misconception is that factory work was unskilled. Well, I certainly thought that until now. Yeah. Was I laboring under the misconception, was I? I think you were laboring under a very large misconception. Well, thank you for putting me right. Well, thank you, Charles. Yeah, Charles. It looks like a book, doesn't it? Now tooling, on the other hand, Archibald is the... Oh, let me tell you about him. I'm very proud of him. This is real gold leaf and he's, it's you can't sneeze when you're doing... Oh, you can't even blow. Look at that. You've got to blow to get it onto the pad. Now, what is that pad that he's putting on? It's made of suede to the other side of leather. It just sort of holds the... That's a gold knife. Special gold knife. You can't touch that with your hand. No, no. You can eat gold leaf. Did you know that? I did. It's very good for you. In fact, I think, I think Archibald used to have a bit of taste for it. That's probably why he died early. He got cold poisoning. And then you go in with a tool. In his hand he has a hot tool. Hot tool. There's an adhesive underneath there which is glare which is made from egg white and vinegar. You've treated the book with the egg white and vinegar before you put the gold in. Yes. And that will, that acts as a kind of adhesive which will stick the heat, activates the gold onto the adhesive. That's right. Just a simple center tool. The rest of the gold... We call that... Yeah, that's a 19th century term, isn't it? I'd call that a center tool, rosette. Now, on the other hand, this is another one of the big adventures of the 19th century. What is this? It's a blocking press or a foil stamping machine. When's that from? 1830s. Wow. Around the same time as a guillotine, what Charleston is doing there is he has a composite foil. It's made out of aluminum, probably, with a heat-sensitive adhesive on the back of it. Not dissimilar to the gold stamp. But it's not real gold. No, it's not. Although you can use it. I think they used to originally, didn't they? Yeah. And you can see it's heated up. There's a thermometer here. And you just go in like that. Just all there is to it. You can see once again that this is really for multiple... And mass production. And you can throw away the ones you waste, right? Yeah. Which is a good... It's 5% over as you always prefer. Right. Now pressing... What's Archibald doing? He's just putting it straight in the press. I think he's... I think he's pasting out the end paper, but the cover was already attached, so he doesn't need to do much pressing. No. Just close the book generally with a bit of glue in there. But Charleston... Charleston is... What he's doing now is he's going to wet the text block. Wet? I like that. The text block to the cover. Using a wheat starch paste again. Now what is he pasting out? This is an end paper, right? An end paper which has been attached to the book... tipped on to the book block. And very carefully placing it on the case. And the spine lining is glued on there also. Right. But it's only that that attaches this book. Not as strong. He does the other side. But done correctly it's stronger than you think. Making sure that the attachment is right. And it's all in place. Now he's placing it in this very large standing press. You can see... Oh, right. Much bigger than the one that O'Largeable was using. Metal press. And the boards are a little different too. They have a metal ridge all the way. So that the spine of the book, the joint of the book sits on top of the metal... So that little groove on the strip. And you can see all the boards leaning against the wall there. So you can do about 50 or 60 books at a time. He's filling the press up with what's called furniture. Oh, that's very nice furniture. Where's that from? The Redwood Forest, I believe. Oh, nice furniture. Don't tell him. Oh, no, okay. And now he's closing the press with... He will put quite a bit of pressure on there to keep the books from warping. Yeah. You can get in there overnight. Is it true that the pressure increases overnight from one of the books? Yeah. So there you have it, John. Yeah. Wonderful, wasn't it? Wonderful. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you very much to Charleston, to Mariton. Yeah, consummate craftsman. Yeah. Well, Archibald, certainly. Yeah. Yeah. Charleston's trying. Well, give him a B. Yeah. I'll give him an E for effort. But thank you very much for joining us. And we hope that this... We hope you've gotten an idea of what happened in the hundred years in Charleston Claw. Mm-hmm. Maybe they'll give you an idea of what happened on the inside. Sure. And if you're interested in doing some research of your own or looking at some of the wonderful stuff that the Special Collections has here at the San Francisco Public Library. Yeah, the San Francisco Public Library Special Collections. Take a look at the Graborn Collection, which is a wonderful collection of books about one of the best collections. Absolutely. It's a great place to do research and to book history of any kind, especially book-binding world. Then the Handbook Binders of California is a local group which covers the whole state. We're based here in the Bay Area. Binders and findery enthusiasts. We can put you in touch through the library with them. Yeah. And Dominic is the editor of our Journal and Newsletter. Oh, yes. But John, I have to say, is our new president. We're very excited. He's the first president under 80 that we've had in almost 50 years. That's right. And we hope that things are going to be better. So from John de Merit and Dominic Riley, thank you so much for joining us. And I'm sure we'll see you next time. Back to our reading. Yes. Goodbye. Located in the heart of the Bayview District at 5075 Third Street, the Bayview Anna E. Wadden Branch Library is open Mondays and Tuesdays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesdays 1 to 9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays 1 to 6 p.m. Saturdays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sundays closed. 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